Lipstick Lady
By Iain Britton.
lipstick lady
boys
wave ninja weaponry
count to ten
and a backyard revival
stirs up
dirt
the explosive fields
of childhood
//
state house conglomerations
proliferate
and the meek
cup their ears to walls / to the voices
in walls to parents and grandparents
imprisoned / plastered up
they listen to bones the heartbeats
of bones the hearts still standing
the talk is incessant
sometimes in whispers
sometimes in code
a blabber
of genders
the past’s about the converted
at tables
at candle-sticks
the old and the young / it’s about
a pacifist’s rebellion
//
boys
play at pirates /
robotic cops
they live for the laser lights
death by chocolate
glucose in the blood
they break silences
and an emptiness slowly sticks /
a sugar-plum apparition performs
on a cracked path
//
i take notice
buy tickets
for the collision of comedies
the thespian
who huffs methane
and cow dung
prefers the kiss of a starlet
to the all night
lying-in-state
hooker on palliatives
//
i take notice
pay money
to the lipstick lady
her war paint
setting suns
on my face / smudging
what’s rightly mine / the scorched-earth philosophy
of a journey
//
all around
the fields are feeling
the tug
of being pulled up new sap in the veins
the menu
is highly recommended
and the hungry
assemble on the horizon
tongues licking
jaws working
on flavoured packages
the lady’s doing her sums
balancing her books
lifting her skirt
is purely for show
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Oystercatcher Press published Iain Britton‘s 3rd poetry collection in 2009. Kilmog Press his 4th in 2010. The Red Ceilings Press published an ebook Ten Poems last year and an Argotist Ebook songlines has come online this year. A full collection with Lapwing Publications druidic approaches came out in June. Also a pamphlet from Like This Press has just been published. Forthcoming collection in 2013 with Department Press.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Thursday, November 22nd, 2012.
